He said what?

Gary Player didn’t make any friends at the British Open with his assertion that he knows for a fact that some professional golfers are using performance-enhancing drugs. Player estimated on the day before the tournament that there are 10 players on the world tours using steroids, human growth hormone, or some other enhancer.

One of Player’s South Africa countrymen, two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen, was particularly incensed.

“I’m actually very shocked by his comments, to be honest,” said Goosen, who shot a 1-under-par 70 in the first round. “I don’t know what Gary was trying to prove, saying what he said. In the days he was playing, we could have said there were 10 guys using steroids. It was around in those days. I don’t know why he said that. I don’t know if he was trying to damage the sport, damage golf.

“If people start taking drugs out here, if we want to confirm that, let’s do drug-testing. He mustn’t come and say, ‘I know of 10 guys taking drugs,’ and he can’t say what it is. So he might as well have said nothing.”

Goosen, normally a man of few words, was just getting started.

“If he wants to come and make these comments, why doesn’t he name them?” Goosen said. “If he wants to damage the sport by starting to say things like that, then he must come out and say it. He mustn’t make these half-comments. I mean, I respect Gary Player. He is a good friend of mine, and we get along very well. But I don’t know what he was trying to prove.

“The European Tour has been talking about testing for drugs for some time. At the French Open, they do test every year anyway. Nobody has been found with any sort of substance at that event. I don’t know, I’d like to know who these 10 players are.”

Paul McGinley of Ireland is a member of the European tournament committee, which is trying to come up with a plan to impose drug testing.

“Honestly, hand on heart, I don’t’ know anybody who does (use performance enhancers) or anybody who’s every talked about it,” said McGinley, whose 4-under-par-67 was good enough to for early lead. “Maybe he knows something I don’t know. In terms of drug testing, I’m 100 percent for it. Bring it in. I have nothing to hide. Nearly everybody that I know has nothing to hide, so why not bring it in and get it done and have it there and reiterate how clean our sport is.”

Not everybody is taking Player’s comments too seriously, though. Player does, after all, have a penchant for using a little bit – and sometimes, a lot – of hyperbole to make a point.

“I’ve never seen anybody shooting up in the locker room,” Shell Houston Open champion Adam Scott of Australia said.

“If there were one person in the world (using enhancers), I would be amazed,” said David Howell of England. “But maybe I’m naïve.”